The Off-Shore Debate
About the Author
Award-Winning Actor, Longtime Ocean Advocate and Oceana Board Member.
Ted Danson is an award-winning actor and a longtime activist on behalf of protecting the ocean environment. He is a board member of the environmental group Oceana, which in 2001, merged with the American Oceans Campaign, an ocean preservation organization founded by Danson in 1987.
In the late 1980s, Occidental Petroleum proposed slant drilling off the coast of Santa Monica. I was very concerned about the impact this would have on the ocean environment so I teamed up with an environmental expert to fight it. I’m happy to report that we won. After that, to make sure our oceans would continue to be protected, we co-founded American Oceans Campaign, which worked for fifteen years to protect the oceans from oil drilling and other threats.
We later decided to expand the capacity of the American Oceans Campaign, by joining with Oceana, which is now the largest international organization focused solely on protecting the oceans.
I am against the opening up of the outer continental shelf of our oceans to oil and gas development. The same reasons that made more offshore oil drilling a bad idea when I founded the American Oceans Campaign are still valid today.
- 120 million gallons of oil are discharged into the world’s oceans each year from platforms, marine transportation, vessel discharges and accidents.
- The U.S. Energy Information Agency shows that even at peak production, increased drilling offshore would produce less than one percent of the current energy demand in the U.S.
- According to recent estimates, the offshore wind industry could generate nearly $950 billion in economic activity and more than 250,000 jobs over the next 20 years.
Press Release about Hearing: http://oceana.org/north-america/media-center/press-releases/press_releas...
Written Testimony: http://oceana.org/fileadmin/oceana/uploads/policy/Ted_Danson_Written_Tes...
Conservation Coalition Statement about Offshore Drilling: http://oceana.org/fileadmin/oceana/uploads/Climate_Change/Offshore_Drill...
About This Video
On February 11, 2009 I testified before Congress, urging the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources to protect our oceans and climate from the threats of offshore drilling. In my testimony, I called on Congress to quickly reinstate the moratorium on offshore drilling, which was allowed to lapse in 2008.
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3 comments for "The Off-Shore Debate".
1. Long term vs. short term
When I used to watch Cheers I never thought I'd one day be nodding my head in agreement to ted Danson's environmental policies, but that's exactly what happened. Offshore oil drilling is a very short term solution, if we don't address our energy consumption we won't get anywhere.
There's a really interesting debate on oil drilling over at opposing views: Should the U.S. allow offshore oil drilling?"
2. He seems to understand some of the underlying science
He's right. The risks of continued fossil fuel exploitation outweigh the benefits. A risk he didn't mention is increased probability of oil spills closer to home with off shore drilling.
More people need to think about the precautionary principle in the context of this debate.
3. I like this. It is something
I like this. It is something nobody seems to talk about and the way you lay out the facts, it seems like an obvious choice to avoid drilling.